Wiora noted a disconnect between the state of IT and Creative Solutions’ passion for patient care. The company, based in Fort Worth, Texas, runs more than 49 skilled nursing and 13 assisted living facilities. The CIO determined cloud computing would let the IT side catch up with the rest of the company. The company selected VMware’s vCloud Air, an infrastructure as a service offering, as its core cloud computing technology. VMware, Wiora said, was open to accommodating Creative Solutions’ security vision: A customized version of the Health Information Trust Alliance framework, which incorporates HIPAA, NIST and PCI among other security controls.

The Results

Incorporating the key frameworks into its cloud from the start put Creative Solutions on the proper security track. In addition, the cloud deployment improved the performance of applications such as EHR. Instead of a two-second lag, the company recorded round-trip latency in the 40-to-80 millisecond range. That’s an important plus for care delivery, considering caregivers at an individual facility use kiosk computers to record thousands of patient interactions daily. The company has also addressed internet outages, using Cradlepoint technology that fails over to 4G LTE in the event of disruption. “The company is now a phoenix out of the ashes in terms of IT,” Wiora said.

]]>Coming in at No. 8 in market research outfit IDC’s tech predictions for 2016 and beyond, was this: “industry clouds.” In a webcast, analyst Frank Gens said companies like John Deere and UnitedHealthcare are turning industry cloud platforms into “epicenters of innovation, growth and disruption” — and he said half of U.S. organizations will either create or partner with one to distribute or source their innovations by 2018.

The predictions highlighted developing technologies like the Internet of Things — 22 billion devices are forecast to be hooked into to it by 2018 — and familiar ones that nonetheless are growing madly, like cloud computing. But industry clouds was a new one on me, so I turned to Eric Newmark, an IDC analyst who helps life-sciences organizations make technology decisions. He also leads the company’s industry cloud platform service.

“Industry cloud is at its essence about buyers becoming suppliers,” Newmark said, referring to buyers and suppliers of cloud computing services. It’s a sort of joint cloud venture for vertical markets: An organization in a specific industry creates a cloud platform for other organizations in that industry — for example, a hospital offering cloud services to other hospitals — or organizations come together on a customized cloud platform to work toward a common goal.

“So it’s more of a many to many not just a one to one,” Newmark said.

Industry clouds a ‘win-win’

There are three models for development of industry clouds, he said. In one, an organization offers up a particular expertise in the cloud for others, who pay for it on a subscription basis. In another, a vendor creates a cloud platform specifically for an industry. And a third is a partnership of user organizations in a specific industry and one or more technology vendors. It’s the most popular model today. For everyone involved, Newmark said, the models are a “win-win.” (See “Industry cloud boon for IT, bane for unwary tech vendors.”)

“The end-user company creating the industry cloud gets to create a new revenue opportunity for themselves,” he said. “All the other entities on the other side of the coin that decide to consume this as a service win as well because they don’t have to re-create the wheel for themselves.”

An example of the partnership model began at Mercy, a healthcare operator in the Midwest. It created a data center as a service for itself as a cloud backup service. It was so successful, Newmark said, “they realized that ‘Wow, this is something that other hospitals could use.'”

So Mercy partnered with several technology vendors to create Mercy Technology Services, which first started offering its cloud backup service. As more hospitals signed on, Mercy offered more services, like application management and telemedicine, and now aggregates data from constituent hospitals to provide data analytics services and insights on how to improve medical care.

Collaboration leads the pack

Healthcare is the forefront of the industry cloud market today, Newmark said. He credited the changes introduced by the Affordable Care Act as a catalyst for entry.

“I think that people have been trying to solve a lot of the different challenges and problems in the healthcare space — tackling things collaboratively has made a lot of sense,” he said.

Life sciences is another area where the collaborative nature of industry clouds is a boon. Sharing R&D may shorten the path to a disease cure, for example — and collaborative partnerships of this sort in the industry have existed for decades, Newmark said. Oil and gas and other utilities companies are slower to come together on the platforms. They’re highly competitive, and “there’s less of a history of working together.”

There are between 100 and 150 industry clouds today, Newmark said. But he expects there will be around 500 by 2018 and 1,000 by 2020. In revenue, hundreds of millions of dollars today will balloon to tens of billions in just three to five years.

]]>http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/total-cio/2016-forecast-industry-clouds-horizon-idc-thinks/feed/0What standout CIOs have in common? A passion for IThttp://searchcio.techtarget.com/blog/TotalCIO/What-standout-CIOs-have-in-common-A-passion-for-IT
http://searchcio.techtarget.com/blog/TotalCIO/What-standout-CIOs-have-in-common-A-passion-for-ITFri, 06 Jun 2014 20:28:52 +0000http://searchcio.techtarget.com/blog/TotalCIO/What-standout-CIOs-have-in-common-A-passion-for-ITHearing the personal stories of this year’s batch of MIT Sloan’s CIO Leadership Award finalists, whom SearchCIO had the good fortune to feature in our conference video series, had me in awe. What sparked their interest in IT leadership? Associate editor Emily McLaughlin explores these standout CIOs’ career trajectories in this week’s Searchlight. It was...

It was striking how each CIO’s journey was so distinct; indeed, one of the few things they had in common was that each story did not begin with the revelation of “I want to be an IT leader when I grow up!” Perhaps because it doesn’t sound as glamorous as “doctor” or “firefighter,” but probably because it isn’t part of a 9-year-old’s vocabulary. And that is the point. The role of the CIO was young and uncharted when these IT execs started out.

So it stands to reason that the path to CIO was long and winding for these folks — in a good way. They acquired myriad skills, both hard and soft, in the process. F. Thaddeus Arroyo, AT&T’s CIO (not to mention an MIT CIO Leadership Award winner) always took the road less traveled — lateral moves in addition to promotions, and in both IT and business, no less — with an eye toward his professional growth. Dell CIO Andi Karaboutis followed her mathematical bent: She started out studying industrial engineering but became a computer science convert after taking a course in FORTRAN. Kristin Darby, on the other hand, grew up with IT (discovering a knack for software development while working for her family’s home automation business) but — in a rebellious streak — left it for accounting and healthcare. She eventually found IT again, this time merging it with her desire to improve lives.

But perhaps the more important aspect of these leaders’ stories is the attribute they share with hot shots from all professions — passion. Leadership requires it. Each of these IT leaders discovered what they were passionate about and followed their gut — which eventually molded them into the well-rounded trailblazers they are today.

Who knew business and technology could be such an adventure? Parents – and schools – take note!

In other important tech news this week: Apple also strives to inspire fun with a new programming language Swift; a report shows why young workers are moths to the startup flame; Japanese corporation Softbank creates the first emotionally smart robot; and more.